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music reviews
Artist: Nahash
Track: Sunday
Album: A Dying Breed
huashanrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-dying-breed
As if recording as the Ponies and Laura Ingalls
wasn’t enough, Raph Valensi has gone and added
another alias to the list - Nahash. This album is
dedicated to the ‘memory of a generation that’s
disappearing little by little, a generation that lived
through world wars, a generation that lived most
of their lives free of computers and technology,
a generation that doesn’t have a Facebook page,
who still uses landline phones and is utterly
confused by the internet.’
There’s a fair chance that this generation would be
utterly confused by this album as well - it’s similar
to the Laura Ingalls material in its droniness and lack of beats, and general experimental weirdness. The
sounds here are all verbs rather than notes - rumbles, crashes, screams, echoes, suffocations. Imagine
a pipe organ disintegrating, then bringing the whole church down with it and you’ll get the idea. Very
reminiscent of Eno at his darkest if you ask me, especially the track Sunday.
Artist: Illness Sickness
Track: Anything But Post Rock
Album: Illness Sickness EP
illnesssickness.bandcamp.com
Illness Sickness manage to fit one hell of a lot into
four tracks on this EP. There’s Dark Side-era Pink
Floyd noodling that intersperses with some classic
overdriven metal riffing to go with it. Mostly
instrumental, there is a huge display of technical
ability on display here, with the musicality to go
with it. Rock cello makes a welcome appearance
on a few tracks as well. Personally I’d love to hear
just a touch more grit on this very clean-sounding
record, but that’s probably because I’ve been to
too many shows by Low Bow - see next page.
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